First episode 70 : 爱情公寓 iPartment

You've tempted me in with all the alluring buzz. Have got the first two episodes downloading . . .

Gave a watch and enjoyed it enough to grab a few more episodes. I happened to look it up on douban and was surprised to see it rated so well.

Have got the first two episodes downloading

You'll need the third episode for the 很行 joke.

I think the line "Ladies and 鄉親們" is quite hilarious.

Apparently, this line made it into this year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

This is getting a remarkable number of laughs. I was wondering how they got away with some of it (episode two: 你不是去捐。。去买。。。那个吧？） and then I realized this is a 未删减版. Make sure you're not getting a watered-down version.

I don't know how the show does it. I even laugh when 美嘉 screeches.

It does get better. It's quite funny in later episodes, when the actors get used to the roles.

The plots are the typical sitcom plots you will know from every other sitcom ever recorded, but some of the lines are pure gold!

Watch the 5th episode

Aye aye Cap'n.

I looked into the 三浪真言 as it was obviously coming from somewhere - seems to be this film where there are five of them? Perhaps the accent is a take-off of the movie? Seems a bit obscure though, it's a 1995 film - was the target audience even born? I thought she was doing a pretty good Scooby Doo impression myself.

@pom45i - I wonder if somehow Google Translate might have taken the 菲 of 胡一菲‘s name, seen it as an abbreviation for 菲律宾 and thrown the word Philippines out? And if you have any translation questions you're more than welcome to post them on here.

Was in KFC today, was tempted to just ask for 一份。

Yeah, that's what I thought too. From now on I will be more careful with google. Thanks a lot, now we've got some problem with viikii, but once it is fixed, i partment subbing will really resume, and then I'll use you. I regret not knowing this forum earlier, soince I met with a lot of problem while subbing this drama, and I spent a lot of time trying to solve them.

I think that this is a very hard one to sub. There are many references that people not familiar with China won't understand, and a lot of the humour is based on the language and word games.

I'm regretting not writing down all the odd vocabulary I run into. There's so much of it.

By the way, if you come up with a list of tricky words while subbing (things you need to look up, things you don't understand, etc.), it would be great if you could post them here. They're bound to be tricky for other people too.

My tricky word from Episode 5: 肚兜. This refers to a sort of apron that little kids wear, which doesn't actually cover much except the front of your body. In this episode, it is used to describe a piece of sexy underwear that 美嘉 buys to seduce Sekiya.

Edited February 16, 2010 at 10:28 PM by renzhe

肚兜. This refers to a sort of apron that little kids wear, which doesn't actually cover much except the front of your body.

Not just for kids. Women wore that too in the past.

A quick google image search was worth a thousand words in this case. As soon as I saw it, it all made sense.

I should remember to do this more often.

In this episode, it is used to describe a piece of sexy underwear that 美嘉 buys to seduce Sekiya.

Lets just move episode 5 up the list of things to do, shall we. . .

There's a lot of stuff in this where I suspect I'm missing references, and when I mention some things to Chinese friends they plead outness. The use of 秀逗 I had to look up - this comes from a Japanese rendering of 'short', as in short circuit, as in someone who's being a bit slow or dense. 挪车位 was a reference to a popular browser game where you have to hog parking spaces. When 美嘉 tells someone to go to Baidu and Google it I don't know if this is a joke about her search engine confusion (suspect it is) or if Google really does just mean search now (suspect it does).

But some of the jokes are genuinely funny - the 很行 one was not just smart, they gave the audience a bit of credit and didn't explain it. The guy (the male actors all blend into one for me, sorry) telling his therapist about all the things that had changed since he was a kid - "you kept your clothes on to take photos . . . you paid back money you borrowed . . . you knew who a kid's dad was . . . " was great, but CCTV wouldn't dare do it.

I reckon it could stand to be cut down to half hour shows and squeeze some of the comedy falling over out, but the good bits are still good enough to give it the momentum.

I'm regretting not writing down all the odd vocabulary I run into. There's so much of it.

I can see me watching quite a bit more of this, so if you want to post up questions I'll do what I can to save you having to go to Baidu and Google it.

I'm almost tempted to start a 'Who's your favourite 爱情公寓 character' poll.

Pom45i, thanks for posting this up, and welcome to the forums! Stick around.

At first my favorite character was Wan Yu, even if she was over played. But now after watching episode 9 I think it would be Yi Fei, she's so forward, and I like her way of flirting, very forward, and choosing the one with the best car.

Actually they're all very cute.

On another matter, latelly, myspace videos don' work with viikii, and viikii doesn't allow us to download the subtitles we made. So the english subbed version is problematic to watch. But there is different method to get the softsub. Unfortunatelly, I think we lost the editing job that has been done, also it's a little a pain to create the softsub. (Here the method, you can see why I don't do that everytime).

Anyway, for those who are interested, in this folder, there is the softsubs for episode 1&2, and the translations for episode 3 to 8. So you might see a part of the answers we found concerning some difficult translation, also you'll see our obvious mistake, just keep in mind that there is very few people working on it, none are native chinese, and moreover this file doesn't show the corrections that have been already done:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7DZ4IRJK

If that interests people, I'll create the softsubs for the other episode, and I'll add the translations for episode 9 since those are nearly done.

@roddy, you'll see me more and more on this forum. I love the ambiance.

And I am always willing to discover new good drama and improve my chinese. (by the way, does anyone have a good suggestion for a good recent not HK, mainland drama, that isn't in the list?)

Edited February 18, 2010 at 08:11 PM by pom45i

If anyone has good shows to recommend, please do so in the First Episode thread.

As for the characters, I have to admit that the female characters are much better, at least in the first few episodes. Other than 吕子桥, the other male characters are not that memorable. Sure, Sekiya is involved in lots of funnies, but that's more due to him being a walking stereotype than anything interesting about his personality.

So, I thought that this was too good to skip in terms of really good vocabulary, so I thought I'd try to fish some rarer, more interesting stuff from the second episode.

HOLY crap!

Anyway, hope it helps somebody. This show is really full of useful, colloquial stuff.

溃疡 ulcer

颠峰 ＝ 巅峰 = summit, peak

算命的 fortune-teller

阿巴 onomatopoeia for a mute

遐 distant / lasting

家道中落 one's family fortunes decline

跑堂 waiter (old fashioned)

零头 loose change

洋娃娃 western-style doll

假冒 falsely pose as somebody else

假冒归假冒 to pose as different people in a succession

井水不犯河水 well water does not intrude into river water—I'll mind my own business, you mind yours

南水北调 south water to north (as in canals)

虐待 abuse, mistreat

泼妇 vixen, bitch

臂力过人 arm strength which surpasses that of a man

吕步 I think that this is the nickname of 吕子乔

俊秀 delicate, pretty

塑泥人 make human figurines out of clay

闹着玩儿 fooling around

抹布 rag

撞墙 bump against a wall, hit an obstacle

惹 to offend, provoke

火星 Mars

牛排 (beef) steak

套餐 prepared meal

没心没肺 simple-minded

股票 share (as in stocks)

晦气 unlucky

跟打了鸡血似的 like hitting bloodstone (??); like finding gold perhaps?

抽鸦片 to smoke opium

金融板块 bank stocks

买进 buy in

庄家 banker

吸筹

放货积累资金 to let the goods accumulate capital

他旗下的麦格金融 协顺资询 天奎保险也都一样

旗下 flag-bearer (???)

林氏银行 LinShi bank, run by Wanyu's father

麦格金融 MagGroup

协顺资询

天奎保险 TianKui insurance

补仓 variation call; margin call; cover

富翁 man of wealth

中韩混血 Chinese-Korean mixed-blood

出众 out of the ordinary

气质 qualities, disposition

不凡 extraordinary

形象 image, form

貂婵 ＝ 貂蝉 Diao Chan, one of the Four Beauties of ancient China

不咋地 = 不怎么样 = nothing special

丰衣足食 have ample food and clothing

维吾尔族 one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups of China

幸会 (a rather formal greeting) very pleased to meet you

多音字 character with multiple pronunciations

前台 front desk

博大精深 deep and profound

参透 to wake up to enlightenment

学到活到

忽悠 to hoodwink

肚肠 belly, heart

单相思 unrequited love

口是心非 say one thing, mean another

快刀斩乱麻 cut a tangled skin of jute with a sharp knife; cut the Gordian knot

生米煮成熟饭 the rice is cooked; what's done is done

天意 the will of the Heaven

重播 repeat (of a transmission)

苗头 premonition

见分晓 clear up (a matter or doubts); find a solution

非洲食人族酋长的女儿 daughter of an African tribal chief

隐形耳机 concealed earpiece

远程 long distance

监控 monitor and control

报上 to report

横滨 Yokohama

反恐意识 anti-terrorism awareness

早滔田

哇塞 wow

宠物 a pet

高清晰 high definition

彩色 multi-coloured

针孔 eye of a needle

摄像头 surveillance camera or a webcam

体贴 show consideration

浴缸 bathtub

黑店 an inn run by brigands

宽敞 spacious

押金 deposit

哈依 phonetic for Japanese "hai"

收藏 collect

爱情三脚猫 name of the manga character Sekiya draws

三脚猫 a jack of all trades

武松打虎

大麦 barley

包养 to financially support somebody

素材 material, source material

一泻如注 should be like 一泻千里 = flow like a river

吹弹可破 can be broken by blowing at it

肖邦 Chopin

李斯特 Liszt

拉赫马尼诺夫 Rachmaninoff

多拉A梦 Doraemon

盗版 pirated

光碟 CD

雪茄 cigar

巴西 Brazil

发霉 go mouldy

假钞 counterfeit money

风格的摇滚 modern rock music

布兰妮 Britney, she's talking about Britney Spears

戴维 贝克汉姆 David Beckham

偷窥 to peek

卡通人物 cartoon characters

绿巨人 the Incredible Hulk

西兰花 broccoli

省心 to not worry too much

红杏出墙 red appricot extends beyond the wall -- a woman is being unfaithful

鲁莽 rash; reckless

诱惑 seduce, tempt

自欺欺人 deceive oneself as well as others

浮云 floating clouds

走上歧路 to chose a wrong path (in life)

巴菲特 (Warren) Buffet

盖茨 (Bill) Gates

阿联酋 United Arab Emirates

挖石油 dig/extract crude oil

连体婴儿 Siamese twins

The stuff I couldn't find:

With 巅峰. he was referring to an emotional peak, I'm not sure from the context if orgasm was meant or just an emotional high.

吕步 I think is the nickname of 吕子乔 (he calls himself 小步 when picking up girls, which is funny in later episodes)

吸筹 is a financial term, probably something to do with letting stock prices drop so you can buy in at the right moment.

协顺资询 - no idea, likely another company/fund name

学到活到 - no idea, learning your whole life?

早滔田 either a city in Japan or a name of an elite university in Japan

武松打虎 - I don't know, I only know 一二三四五, 上山打老虎

一泻如主 should be similar to 一泻千里 but I'm not sure

Oh, and an ice cream for whoever deciphers this (from 6th episode):

你的卡地亚耳环和LV限量版

Cadillac LV .....what.....?!?

Edited February 27, 2010 at 12:12 AM by renzhe

早滔田

Waseda University, with Keiou one of the two top private universities. However, in popular culture they have a reputation to be a place for dandies/rich people ("Waseda/Keiou boy"), as in Japan, the absolute top talent goes to the public Tokyo University...

OK, third episode.

Congrats to roddy for picking up those references, I sure missed them the first time around.

戴绿帽子 to be cheated on by one's girlfriend or wife

排骨 spare ribs

打个比方 to use an analogy

八卦 Bagua, the eight divine trigrams

潦草 illegible (handwriting)

橄榄树 olive tree

斐然 brilliant

秘诀 secret (skill or teaching)

孙燕姿 Stefanie Sun, a Singaporean pop artist

移动点歌台 mobile radio station playing requested songs

若无其事 as if nothing had happened

精神分裂 schizophrenia

前兆 omen; forewarning

倾诉 open up, let others know your feelings

含笑九泉 rest happy in one's grave

兴高采烈 in high spirits, cheerful

心花怒放 burst with joy

一见钟情 fall in love at first sight

调皮 naughty; mischievous

绰号 nickname

低潮 low tide

典型 typical

忧郁症 (clinical) depression

一目了然 be clear at a glance

症状 symptom

纳尼亚 Narnia

虚构 fabricate, make up

蜘蛛侠 Spiderman

蝙蝠侠 Batman

圣诞老人 Santa Claus

破盆价

北极熊 polar bear

捐款 gather donations

奥特曼故乡

特发

大蒜 garlic

俯卧撑 push-up

狐狸 fox

傻冒儿 idiot

保释 bail

瞎扯 talk nonsense

风凉话 irresponsible and sarcastic remarks

贸然行事 rush into something (??)

资询公司 consulting company

亚洲杯 Asian Cup

柬埔寨 Cambodia

联欢会 get-together

麦当劳 McDonald's

麦香猪柳蛋

变形金刚 Transformers

自拍视频 self-made video

长颈鹿 giraffe

大熊猫 Great Panda

疯牛病 mad cow disease

禽流感 SARS

花招 trick

马桶 toilet bowl

内分泌 endocrine system

失调 disorder

莫名奇妙 = 莫名其妙 = inexplicable

善解人意 considerate

消毒 disinfected / antibacterial

面巾纸 paper handkerchief

贴心 intimate, close

抑郁 depressed, gloomy

黯然神伤 feel dejected

无药可救 hopeless case, no cure

后事 funeral affairs

恶作剧 a practical joke

临床诊断 clinical diagnosis

试图 try, attempt

剥皮 to peel (skin)

抽筋 have a cramp

喋喋不休 talk endlessly

马来西亚 Malaysia

梁静茹 Fish Leong, also known as Jasmine Leong, a Malaysian pop artist

沮丧 dejected, depressed

点击器 defibrilator

电熨斗 iron

Edited February 18, 2010 at 09:22 PM by renzhe

I don't know if that can help, but on viikii, the sentences containing 吸筹 and 协顺资询 have been translated by "Those stocks are the tycoons' accumulated funds", "It's the same with their finances, inquiries, and insurance"

吸筹 accumulated fund.

学到老活到老, live old, always learning

Edited February 18, 2010 at 08:21 PM by pom45i

That's an approximate translation. The actual translation is not too important, as the joke is that Wanyu has in-depth insider information on high-level banking, but can't manage to order KFC. Still, it's interesting from a language perspective.

She says:

那是庄家吸筹 放货积累资金。 他旗下的麦格金融 协顺资询 天奎保险也都一样。庄家有了筹码，自然就会一路推高的。现在正好补仓，就等爆发了。

That's bank absorbing chips/shares, letting the goods accumulate capital. The companies under its banner, MagGroup Finance, XieShun Consulting and TianKui Insurance likewise. When the bank has the (bargaining) chips/shares, of course it will constantly raise (the price). Right now, it's best to make a margin call, and wait for the prices to explode.

Here some background info: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/margincall.asp

Essentially, 一菲 bought some stocks from the 林氏 bank (the one 宛瑜's father owns, but they don't know this), and is really angry that they are plummeting. Wanyu tells her that this is the time to buy in. She explains it using gambling terminology. The bank is buying stock expecting it to appreciate. 一菲 should make a margin call to her broker, essentially pump in more money, because the stock price is bound to bounce back.

Roughly

TBH, I don't think most native speakers would fully understand this either. It's meant as humorous banking jargon that leaves everyone (including the cast) scratching their heads.

By the way, LV stands for Louis Vuitton.